Evoke

Chapter One

Mystic Falls
March 2nd, 2010

Mystic Falls was a completely different place to when I left 146 years ago. None of the original buildings still existed – it was all concrete and bricks now, not wood and stone. The only thing that remained from my hometown was the Founder's Hall and what was the apothecary, but even they had been rebuilt and extended.
It's not surprising, really. Who would want to live in wooden houses, infected with damp, without any plumbing? I certainly wouldn't, if my other choice was a much more modern home.
The upsetting thing for me was I couldn't revisit anything that I knew. My home had wasted away and had the hospital built upon it's ruins. The Salvatore Boarding House replaced my childhood home, what was left of it's foundations around my feet.
I knew I would be sad when I came back here – after all, it's where I was born, and where my parents are buried. But I didn't expect the wave of sadness to flow through me when I saw what was left of our old estate. Trees had grown up all around it – if I hadn't trodden this land for the first twenty eight years of my life, I wouldn't recognise it at all.
This was the place where I was born, where my brothers, Damon and Stefan, were both born and where both of my parents died. It was emotional, standing on the ground that would have been the parlour. I could almost see the borders of the garden beyond the house, the stone pillars that marked mine, Damon's and Stefan's births crumbling in a way that reminded me of how my humanity crumbled.
I stayed on the old estate for only a few moments longer – it was overwhelming me to a point where I needed to leave. I walked back through the woods and out into the town. The streets were fairly busy, but not enough that it felt overcrowded. It was nice to see my hometown so popular.
I felt like I was sticking out like a sore thumb – my red hair caught people's eyes wherever I went and I was a new face (well, technically, I was a really old face, but they weren't to know).
My walk took me to the town square, and to a place called the Mystic Grill - I felt as though I could use a drink right now. Inside was warm and cozy, with lots of people - some drinking, some eating, some playing snooker.
But the one person who caught my eye was sat at the bar, his leather-clad shoulders slumped inward and his back to me. But despite that, and despite having not seen him in 146 years, I knew exactly who it was.
My brothers and I were as close as we could have ever been when we were human. I was ten years older than Stefan, and three years older than Damon, so I always had an authoritative role when they were younger. But I was much kinder than our father, and much less sick than our mother, so I would always play with them and make sure they were enjoying their lives as much as they could. Some people would say that they thought Stefan was my favorite brother - I always ran to him first and babied him like nobody's business - whilst others would say that Damon was my favorite brother - he and I could talk for hours about the stupidest things and I always spent a little extra time with him. But the truth was, they were both my favorite - I just knew that they needed different things from me as their older sister. I loved them both so much and it has almost killed me being away from them for so long. But I had only just managed to cope with the emotional pain of returning to Mystic Falls to find them. I wish I had learnt to deal with it earlier.
I felt so many emotions overwhelm me in one go. My brother was in the same room as me. I was starting to draw some attention, as I was frozen in place just by the doorway, but I couldn't care less. My brother was right there.
If I had a heartbeat, I'm sure he would be able to hear it's frantic pace.
With shaking hands, I slowly walked towards the bar. I could feel eyes following me, but all I was focused on was my brother. He had turned to speak to someone next to him, and seeing his face made all of those emotions heighten once again.
I came to a stop just next to him and braced myself against the bar, before tapping his shoulder gently. He whipped around to face me faster than I expected, angry words starting to form on his lips. But when his gaze met mine and I saw my eyes reflected almost identically on his face, the anger faded and was replaced shock.
He was silent, mouth slightly agape and eyes wide as saucers. Aside from a haircut and a change of clothes, he looked the same as the last time I saw him.
"Hi, Damon," I said softly, a hesitant smile on my face.
He didn't reply straight away. His mouth moved a couple of times with no sound emerging before he could form his words. "Nella? Is that-"
I nodded quickly. "Yeah, D, it's me."
Damon stood up in a flash and pulled me into him, holding me so tight I thought I might snap. I could feel tears well in my eyes as Damon hugged me, so I lifted my head from his shoulders and moved my hands to his face. I completely forgot that we were in a public space - all that mattered to me right now was Damon.
"You're really here?" Damon murmured.
"Yeah, I am. I came back," I said quietly. Up until this moment, I hadn't realised just how much I had missed my brother.
There was so much pain in Damon's voice when he spoke next. "Where have you been?"
This was a question I was hoping to avoid, so I shrugged and smiled a little sheepishly. "Everywhere."
"Everywhere but here," Damon said. I nodded guiltily.
"I'm sorry, Damon," I apologised heavily. "I could never bring myself to come back here before now."
"Why?" Damon asked quietly.
"There's so much pain here for me," I said, feeling the tears well once again. "So much sadness."
"Why are you here now?" Damon questioned.
"Because I missed my brothers so much that I couldn't let my pain get in the way any more," I said gently.
"I missed you," Damon said, bringing me back in for another hug. I could hear the sadness in his voice and guilt welled up inside me like never before.
"I'm so sorry, Damon."
"I know," He murmured. "You're here now."
I looked at him again, pulling myself together and smiling properly. "And I'm not planning on leaving."
Damon smiled - it was so genuine and so gleeful. "That saves me the trouble of locking you up."
I laughed. "Oh, goodness, you haven't changed, have you?"
"Not as much as some people think," Damon said. Something in the way he spoke caught my attention and I narrowed my eyes.
"What's that about?"
"What? Oh, nothing," Damon said casually. "It doesn't matter."
I pursed my lips and studied him for a moment, but I couldn't see through his mask. So I just nodded. "Where's Stefan?"
"Probably at home," Damon shrugged, a slight bitterness in his voice.
"Are you sure there's nothing going on, Damon?" I questioned. He turned back to the bar and downed his drink, before saying something I couldn't be bothered to catch to the person he was speaking to before I arrived.
Damon turned back to me, a gleam in his eye now, like he was planning something or had one of his master ideas. "It's nothing for you to worry about, Nella. Let's get you home and settled in."

Damon and I had not stopped talking all the way from the Mystic Grill to the Salvatore Boarding House. Nothing serious - just trivial things, like our favorite decade (Mine's the 60s) and where we where during the most iconic events of the last 146 years.
The way we spoke was like we had only seen each other yesterday, but had almost a century and a half's worth of things to discuss. When we reached the house, I was surprised. It was a gorgeously large, early 1900s house that looked exactly how I expected it to. It wasn't a patch on the old Salvatore house, but I suppose it will do. The interior of the house matched the exterior - dark and very early 1900s. Damon poured me a drink and we carried on our conversation, sitting, facing each other, on one of the sofas in front of the fire.
 "I'm sure I was in Australia when I heard about the Berlin Wall," I said.
 "Australia? Why did you go there?" Damon questioned.
 I shrugged and avoided the real answer. "Wanted to see what it was like."
"I can't remember where I was," Damon mused.
 "Drunk or knocked out?"
 "Both, probably," Damon shrugged and I laughed.
 "What about when you found out about Kurt Cobain?" I asked, expecting a similar answer to the one before.
 "He was here," A voice said from the doorway. "With me."
I spun around and stood up so quickly that I very nearly fell over. "Stefan!"
He rushed towards me and pulled me into a hug that rivalled Damon's.
"I can't believe you're here, Nella," He murmured.
"Well I am, Stef. I'm here and I'm staying," I replied quietly.
"I've missed you," Stefan said and it sounded the same as Damon's did - painful.
"Oh, I missed you too," I said, moving back to hold his face. He too looked the same as he did when I last saw him, aside from the haircut and clothing. "So much."
"Great!" Damon said, standing up. "Now that we've done our small talk and Stefan's here, why don't we talk about where the hell you've been, Antoinella?"
I swallowed. Both Damon and Stefan were staring at me expectantly and I felt nerves rise in my stomach. "What do you want to know?"
"Why don't you start from the beginning?" Damon suggested.
"When you left," Stefan added. "When we thought you'd abandoned us."
"I didn't abandon you," I said immediately. "I would never-"
"Fine, you didn't abandon us. But you still left," Damon said.
"If I had known what was going to happen, I'd have never left," I said truthfully. "I know that Emily explained to you both what happened to me and why I left. What do you want me to tell you?"
Stefan and Damon exchanged a look. "We just want the truth, Nella."
I ran a hand through my hair and sat back down. "You know I left because I was turned into a vampire. Emily thought that I needed to leave - to make sure that the council didn't find me so Katherine's plan would work."
"You were part of Katherine's plan?" Damon said sharply.
"I didn't know that I was until I had left," I sighed. "Emily set everything up for me - she packed all of my stuff, told my carriage driver where to take me - everything. I was confused; vampirism didn't blend well with me at the beginning. I just went with what she told me," I said. "If I had known-"
"But you didn't," Damon snapped.
"I know, Damon! Don't you think I regret leaving you?! I love you both more than life itself and everyday for the last 146 years I thought of you. But I had my own demons to deal with and I've only just come to peace with the last of them that allowed me to come back here."
"What kind of demons?" Stefan asked.
"As I said, vampirism didn't blend well with me. I have to work everyday to stop myself from going bloodcrazy," I said. "I never turned my emotions off so I dealt with everything that happened to me every day and I escalated everything in my mind. I made this place out to be Hell itself and that you two would never want to see me again. I had a good life whilst I was away from here, but I plagued myself with hatred for so long."
Damon's tight jaw slackened as I spoke, but he didn't say anything.
"So you've only just come to peace with yourself?" Stefan asked gently.
"Yeah," I nodded. "But I don't want to talk about myself right now - you both know how I turned and you know what I've been doing the last 146 years. Now it's your turn to talk."

And they did. We spent the rest of the day, all of the night and even the day after talking about the 146 years that we had lost. We laughed together, we cried together and we caught up on everything and anything. So when Damon told me that we're visiting the Gilberts, I felt caught up enough to know that Stefan's dating the youngest girl Gilbert, Elena, and that Damon's best friend Alaric (who happens to be a vampire hunter - how ironic) is dating her aunt Jenna Sommers.
But I left one big secret tucked away from my brothers. We were already balancing carefully with each other and I knew that telling them that I had got married for a second time would push me over. No, it was best to keep the fact I had married an Original vampire a secret for now.